


Physical Connection

by raewise



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Bodyswap, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewise/pseuds/raewise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hermann wakes up with tattoos, Newt tries (and fails) to be sneaky, and Gus-Gus the Mouse is an innocent third party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Physical Connection

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on Tumblr requested a bodyswap fic, so have a oneshot.
> 
> Newt’s pet mouse is named Gus-Gus and he is my favourite OC.

The first thing Hermann was aware of was the fact he did not wake up in his own room. The bed was too soft, and his blankets were too heavy and his body was too warm. The room smelled faintly of ammonia and Kaiju. Was that an odd scurrying on the other side of the room..?

Sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the too-soft bed, he fumbled around for his cane, but it didn’t seem to be where it normally should’ve been. With a grunt, he grabbed the side of the bed and stood up. But there wasn’t the usual ache in his joints, which was surprising since it usually flared the worst in the morning.

In fact, he was able to shuffle over to the other side of the room where the light should be by the door with little difficulty. He stubbed his toe on a table that should not be in the middle of his room and let out an uncharacteristic squeak— _I’ve never squeaked in my life_ —but flicked on his room’s light and let out a gasp at what he saw.

Posters were on the walls, Kaiju that roared in their 2D forms, and figurines lined the bookshelves in between textbooks and scattered notes. On one shelf was a tiny cage, in which seemed to be… a mouse? Everything was so messy and foreign and so very Newton that he immediately knew he had somehow been transported to his lab partner’s room.

“That little—” He stopped talking immediately, his hand flying up to his throat. That had not been his voice. It was his accent, with his usual dagger-sharp tone, but it certainly was not his voice.

His eyes darted down to his arms, and he gasped.

He was covered in gaudy Kaiju tattoos, his fingers too short and his nails too coated in dirt and grime to be the hands of a mathematician.

He was out the door faster than he had ever moved before in his life.

—

He was stopped by several people, some laughing and saying, “Jeez, Geiszler, you could at least put on some pants? Having another breakthrough?” The last sentence was always said mockingly, and Hermann felt a tinge of annoyance lurking in the back of his head. Maybe he  _was_ having a breakthrough? Maybe he was about to save everyone’s lives?

This train of thought, however, was always cut off by a cold feeling of dread. This was not his body. When he looked down he could see the soft swell of his stomach and the tattooed arms and thighs and it was all very disturbing.

Newt was in Hermann’s quarters, and he only knocked once when the heavy metal door swung open and his own face looked down at him like he was a ghost.

“Good God,” he breathed and Newt cringed.

“Don’t, dude—don’t talk in that accent with my voice and my body and—” A hand reached up and fisted his bedhead, and Hermann felt bile in the back of his throat.

“I want an explanation, Newton. Why am I you right now?”

“Uh—I don’t—” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly. “I’m gonna pass the fuck out, man. My mind’s going miles a minute. And I know for a fact my body could not catch yours if you fainted, so can we, can we sit down for half a mo’?”

Hermann nodded, feeling dizzy himself. Those words should never be coming out of his mouth. He didn’t use colloquialisms so haphazardly, he didn’t—

“Jesus fucking Christ, walking with a cane is shit!” Newt exclaimed, collapsing onto the bed. He stretched his long legs in front of him and looked up at Hermann with the most pathetic look he could muster.

“I’m sorry,” Hermann said, but he was entirely sure why he’d be apologizing for something that was probably—definitely—Newton’s fault.

“No, don’t say that, I mean”—He ran a hand through his hair—“it’s kinda-sorta my fault this happened.”

He tried to shift his body so he was small as possible but somehow it didn’t stop Hermann’s red vision from making him its sole target. “You  _what_?!”

Newt winced and tried to force an awkward chuckle. “I, uh, snuck into your room last night and I—You’re a really heavy sleeper, did you know that?”

“ _Newton_.”

He sighed, twiddling his thumbs. “I hooked our brains together for an, an experiment. I wanted to, er, see what your dreams were like. I wanted to have a one-way Drift connection. Kind of. But I guess it wasn’t as one-way as I thought…”

“You are an idiot! A bloody fool!” His hands were flailing and he had to close them into tight fists at his sides to keep from hitting something. “How do we reverse it?”

Newt shrugged a single shoulder. “We could try another neurological connection, but my last one blew and can’t be reused so that’s out for a bit until I make another one. Or we could try a, um, physical… connection…”

Hermann blinked. His vision was blurrier than usual so it was a bit hard to see the expression of his face, but he looked awful bashful. “So are you referring to holding hands, or just a brush of skin to skin?”

“No, like,  _intimate physical connection_.”

There was a stillness in the room that Hermann filled almost thirty seconds later with:

“Well, that’s certainly not an option, so we’ll just have to wait for you to make a second one, won’t we?”

Newton groaned. “Yeah, I guess…”

Hermann stood up straighter. “I’m off, then. Get started as soon as you can and I’ll be in the mess hall trying to regulate your diet.”

Closing the door behind him, Hermann could swear he heard Newt groan, “For fuck’s sake…”

He chuckled to himself. He wasn’t going to let Newton get what he wanted so quickly, now was he?


End file.
